Remember where real beauty resides

            I don't consider myself a prude, but lately I've been clucking my tongue over the antics of female performers who are selling their souls for a bit of notoriety.

            The Grammy Awards were the latest debacle in a long line of young women who think taking off their clothes and performing lewd acts is the only way to establish themselves as a "serious artist."

            Case in point, Katy Perry. She became well known and admired for her beautiful renditions of Christian music. One of her biggest hits, "Firework," called for people to believe there was a spark inside themselves.

            Now she's pole dancing with demons on national television.

            We've long watched young girls come bare it all for fame:  Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and Miley Cyrus come to mind. They went from pre-teen idols to 20-something sleaze bags, all for fame and fortune.

            No denying they're the talk of the town, from bloggers slamming them to their sexy videos attracting viewers by the thousands. Perhaps it's brilliant marketing on their part because they're financially successful and popular, but that's a twisted path to success for women in our country.

            These performers are a small slice of Americana. I firmly believe parents are the true voice of reason when it comes to teaching youngsters about the true meaning of success. The Dove Corporation is one of the few industries doing something positive for young girls.

 

The Evolution of Beauty

            A few years ago, Dove created a video "The Evolution of Beauty." A female kindergarten teacher underwent an all-day make-over session. Stylists curled her hair and professional cosmetologists  caked on the make-up. Then the Photoshop magicians made her neck longer, reshaped her face and plumped up her hair.

            The meaning was how can we define beauty when reality is so far removed from what's on the pages of fashion magazines and on billboards.

            They followed up that campaign with "Real Beauty Sketches" where women were asked to describe themselves and a police forensics artist drew what they described.

            Afterwards, the women were asked to find someone in the waiting room to visit with. Later, the forensics artist asked them to describe the person they'd talked with. The results were striking.

            The women were harsh and judgmental about their looks yet the people who talked with them described their new friend in gentler terms and much more accurately. The women were quiet and circumspect, wondering why they'd been so hard on themselves.

            Dove's latest project is entitled "Selfies." A professional photographer talked with pre-teens and their mothers about their looks. All were critical of how they looked and found fault with their facial features.

            The photographer then asked the girls and their mothers to take self portraits, or "selfies" with their cell phones. The moms self-consciously posed with their daughters and then they began to have fun with the photos.

            Dove enlarged the selfies and posted the portraits in a large gallery. They gave guests Post-It notes and asked them to comment on the pictures. All the comments were positive – what a beautiful smile, love your eyes and confident smile.  

            The girls and their moms were reminded that true beauty comes from being strong and brave and being happy with yourself.

            Not from acting like trash.

            These self-proclaimed successful artists could learn a thing or two from young girls who came to understand the real meaning of class and beauty these Hollywood flashes in the pan have forgotten – ignite the spark in yourself and remember real beauty comes from within.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

My Guardian Angel - Always on Patrol

            Photographs capture special moments in our lives, so it was with disappointment I realized I missed the opportunities I had over the holidays to take a picture with my eldest son.   

            I'm not one for being in the picture. I'm usually behind the lens, so photos of me are few and far between. But I wanted a picture of my son with me, especially as Nick lives over 8,000 miles away and visits once a year.

            I had only one chance:  when I'd drop him off at Hobby Airport for his flight back to Taiwan. We pulled up to the curb, and the walkways were packed with frazzled travelers. I grabbed my camera and a passerby agreed to snap the picture for me.

            One click. One picture.

            I checked the screen, saw the image was there, hugged my son tightly and told him to let me know when he got back to Taiwan.

            As he rushed off into the crowd, I said a prayer, asking his guardian angel to keep watch over him on his travels. On the way home, I'd glance at the camera, knowing for the first time in 10 years, I'd have a visual keepsake of mom and son.

            Life came bounding along and I put downloading the pictures on the back burner. One morning, I lent my camera to a group of students, and when they returned, they asked me to check their photos.

            I started scrolling and realized there were only seven images in the camera.

            I tried again.

            Just seven photos. My heart started pounding when I realized I'd never downloaded that picture of Nick and me at the airport.

            Pulling the card out of the camera, I inserted it into a card reader, downloaded the images and looked at the computer screen.

            Just seven photos.

            I was devastated and began to cry, beating myself up for not doing what I knew I should've done, knowing I wouldn't have a chance to have that picture taken again for another year, if that.

            At that moment, Jeff Peterson walked into my room.

            Jeff is the new computer information technician for our school, and he just happened to stop by. Although we'd never met in person, he instantly knew something was wrong.

            When I tearfully explained what happened, he said he might be able to get the pictures back. Unless, he cautioned, someone had reformatted the card. Then all the information would be lost forever.

            I handed the card over, sniffling, asking him to please do what he could.

            Ten minutes later, I heard a ping, notifying me I'd gotten a new email. It was from Jeff with a photo attachment – the picture of Nick and me at the airport.

            Of course that started the tears all over again, but this time, they were tears of relief.

            I'll never put off downloading pictures again and I'll never doubt my guardian angel is watching over me.

            One evening, she was disguised as a man who stopped to tie my Christmas tree back to the roof of my van because I hadn't tied it tight enough.

            She was once a mechanic who replaced a thermometer in my overheated van and didn't charge me, seeing I was stranded in Mobile with my young sons.

            On a trip to Louisiana, she was riding with me through the driving wind and rain as I crossed the Atchafalaya Basin.

            This time, she came into my life wearing loafers and a tie and gave me back one irreplaceable moment in time.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.  

More than a dream

            A few years ago, a radio station was honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by playing all of his recorded speeches.

            Because I'd read excerpts from the "I Have a Dream" speech, I thought I knew the main facts about the late civil rights leader. But I discovered there was so much more to Dr. King than the "free at last" line.

            His speech about talking to his young daughter about why she couldn't go to the local amusement park "Fun Town" is heartbreaking. There was only one reason his 4-year-old daughter couldn't go to the park – the color of her skin.

            Most of us have visited Disneyworld, Fiesta Texas and other amusement parks and we know how much fun those places are.

            But not Yolanda King.

            She was told she couldn't go to the most fun place in town because she wasn't a white child. I cringe thinking about the many parents who've given the same humiliating talk to their children, that they aren't the right color or the right sex or the right nationality to enter places.

            Because these prejudices still exist, tolerance and acceptance are lessons we should be teaching our children, and MLK Day is a great place to start. But instead of concentrating on exactly what King stood for in his life, we've turned the January holiday into a clearance and mark-down sales event.

            That we've done so is ironic, especially when studying King's  1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech.

            He said that when machines and computers, profits and property rights are more important than people, we're in deep trouble. Almost 50 years later, I'd say he's right.

            Many people will text a friend instead of having a face-to-face conversation. We watch or listen to something on an electronic device while eating meals, getting dressed, driving to and from work and even when exercising.

            In the evenings, we're glued to our flat-screen TVs, iPads or laptops instead of thinking about what's just or intolerant in life or engaging in meaningful dialogues with each other.

            And we've convinced ourselves that hash tags and smiley faces are a suitable replacement for a person-to-person smile or hug. We don't need computer-generated road signs when we can look in a friend's eyes and see despair, happiness or grief.

            King believed that through meaningful dialogue with each other, face to face, we would see we are more alike than different. He believed deeply in God and that one day people of color would be free.

            But he wasn't a dreamer. He was a realist.  

            King knew about the deplorable slums in Memphis and Atlanta. He knew people of color were lynched to the applause and cheers of white people. He knew he couldn't sit in the front of the bus without being arrested and then beaten to a pulp.

            He knew he had to demand change and he did so from the very beginning of his career in the 1950s.

            King stood alongside the Freedom Riders in 1961 and 1962.  He was there in 1963 when the Civil Rights Bill was passed. And he was silenced in 1968 when an assassin's bullet took his life much too soon.

            On Monday, when the media is saturated with advertisements for blow-out sales and most of us are home relaxing on a paid holiday, remember the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

            To paraphrase:  Some things have always been wrong and they will always be wrong. But some things are right and will always be right.

            Justice and equality for all are ideals that are always right.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Still get the heebie jeebies from the old bridge

            I've always been fascinated by cars and driving. Luckily I came of age when muscle cars ruled the roads. Back in the early 1970s, our school parking lot was filled with fabulous cars – powerful Ford Mustangs, fast Dodge Chargers and yacht-long Rivieras.

            For me, the real thrill was sitting behind a skinny steering wheel, my hand on a rumbling floor stick shift and then gunning a powerful engine.           

            My dad taught me how to drive when I was 13 because I begged him constantly about wanting to learn how to drive. I remember bucking down the street in our old Ford, trying to ease the clutch while praying I wouldn't hit any of the garbage cans on the side of the road.

            When we'd take long road trips, I sat in the front seat where my dad dispensed driving tips about how to judge distances, how to keep a steady speed and how to safely pass another vehicle. 

            On the day I turned 15, the legal age to drive back then in Louisiana, I was the first one in line at the driver's license bureau and elated when I walked out with my license.

            My parents let me have my dad's beat-up Pontiac Executive, and I drove everywhere, including to school every day. The highlight of my early driving days was when I learned to master the big curve near the governor's mansion on Interstate 110 without tapping my brakes.

            Everything was going well until three friends and I were returning from a high school marching camp at LSU. A week in the Louisiana summer sun had practically melted us, but we'd survived and were glad to be off our feet, heading home in the Pontiac.

            I still wasn't good at reading freeway signs, and instead of taking the exit to north Baton Rouge, I accidentally took the exit for the old Mississippi River Bridge, the one obstacle I said I'd never tackle.

            Built in the 1940s, the structure was steep with narrow lanes and no shoulder. For someone who'd never driven over a bridge, the prospect of driving over the overpass was terrifying.

            My friends were screaming as we headed for the old bridge, and I broke out in a cold sweat. I gripped the steering wheel, my heart pounding, and we slowly ascended the monster.

            I held my breath going up and exhaled at the top. But then I realized – not only did I have to go over the bridge, I had to come right back over it to get back on the right road.

            Somehow we managed to do both safely, and I've avoided that bridge for years. I'd sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic for an hour on the new bridge just to avoid having to drive on those narrow lanes way above the Mississippi River.

            Recently, I needed to drive over the old bridge to go to my sister's house. Approaching the bridge, I tried to calm my beating heart by telling myself that terrifying trip was over 40 years ago, and I've driven over hundreds of bridges since that hot summer.

            Approaching the giant orange monster, my stomach tightened up and I gripped the steering wheel.

            Just like I did so many years ago, I held my breath on the way up and breathed a sigh of relief and triumph when I crossed over into West Baton Rouge Parish.

            Conquering fears isn't easy. Sometimes all it takes is holding our breath and taking a step. Or in my case, a trip over the river.

 This column originally appeared in The Fort Bend Herald.

A year of un-resolutions

            It's the second day of 2014, the day we swear to fulfill all our New Year's resolutions. We will get those running shoes out of the box and run that 5k in March. We will replace the whole milk with skim milk, and we'll tell the waiter to hold the chips and salsa.

            As if.

            I've made hundreds of New Year's resolutions and most fell by the wayside long before Valentine's Day. But not making resolutions at the beginning of a new year somehow seems unproductive. People ask what my resolutions are and I rattle off the normal ones – eat healthier and lose weight.

            And then here comes the chips and salsa.

            Busted.

            However, I'm someone who likes to make lists. I always carry around a to-do list, so having a check-off list for the new year is a compulsion I just can't shake.

            But instead of calling them resolutions, I'm going to entitle my 2014 New Year's list my hopefuls. I hope I can accomplish these or least give each one a good try. So here we go:

·         Laugh more. I'm usually an optimist and a cheerful person, but I find myself criticizing myself more often instead of laughing at my mistakes. Two thousand and fourteen will be the year I'll give myself a break.

·         Learn more about my cell phone. I've had this cell phone for over a year, and my son just showed me how to record my voice which becomes a text message. No more complaining about how much I detest text messaging because it takes me so long to type out the message. No more replies of "OY" instead of "OK" because I can't get my pudgy fingers on the right buttons. My sons should expect full diatribes now via text messaging.

·         Watch more YouTube videos. Laugh if you will, but there's a wealth of information on YouTube. I could learn how to rebuild a motor, macramé a bedspread or speak Chinese by watching YouTube videos. Plus any time I want to hear Frank Sinatra sing "When I Was 17," all I have to do is jump on YouTube and I'll find Ole Blue Eyes.

·         Get outside. With a day job that keeps me inside 10 hours a day and a short walk to my car, it's easy to avoid being outside. Instead of staying cooped up – I know you're thinking watching YouTube videos – I want to get outside and explore my neighborhood on foot instead of from the front seat of my car.

·         Stop reading end-of-the-world stories. From wrist watches that count down the rest of your life to doomsday movies, I'm getting paranoid about asteroids hitting the planet, robots taking over the world and the government using chemtrails to alter the environment. No more. The end's coming whether we like it or not. Until then, I'll simply enjoy my chips and salsa.

·         Eat healthier and lose weight. No way I can compile a list of hopes without putting these on there. After all, these two have been on my list since I was 16 years old. Life just wouldn't seem the same without these old enemies.

      And last but not least, say something nice to someone every day. Too often, I'm in a hurry and don't take the time to give a much needed pat on the back to those who deserve it. And that includes saying something nice to myself.

      So... nice job on finishing this column.

      Check one off the list.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.